


128.75¥

by silkinsilence



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/F, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 11:51:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17446433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkinsilence/pseuds/silkinsilence
Summary: On a day in late winter, two young women take a taxi ride together.





	128.75¥

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in the spring of 2017. The lack of names is definitely not because I was writing thinly-veiled fanfiction in a writing course... _definitely_ not. 
> 
> As the tags imply, not a pleasant ride. If you're familiar with my other AtLA pieces, this is par for the course.

She wakes the same way she has for years, in a bed not her own with arms around her waist and another person's warmth pressed into her back. Her hair is loose across the pillow and the sheets slide against her bare skin. She smells him, on the sheets, on her, all around.

It is the same, but today will be different.

He's a deep sleeper under ordinary circumstances, a trait they do not share. He hardly stirs when she pulls free of him to sit up in bed. She leans against the headboard and allows herself a few moments of silence.

It's not yet done. She can still go back. She could let this be a day like any other.

But she won't, and because of that she smiles and gets up.

Her cigarettes and lighter are where she left (hid) them the night before. She's unused to smoking here, in his presence. If he wakes, she will regret it. But he won't wake, so she takes breath after breath and feels more alive than she ever has before. It tastes good, better than toothpaste, in the morning. She smokes the cigarette down to a stub and grinds it out on the carpet. Afterward she presses her fingers to the lighter's flame to reassure herself that she is real and she is feeling.

The fresh blisters join old scars he's never cared to question.

That grisly business out of the way, she stands and goes about her routine. Bathroom, washing her face, brushing her teeth and washing her mouth to rid it of both morning breath and cigarette smoke. She dresses in the bedroom without a care for the man who sleeps on in the bed.

In her lace undergarments, she sits in front of the vanity. She takes her time combing her hair and imagines someone else holding the comb. The sleeper, perhaps, or her absentee mother. She can't remember her mother combing her hair, but that's something mothers are supposed to do, isn't it? And if she remembers anything about the woman, it is her commitment to playing a part.

It's too important of a day to let thoughts of _her_ cloud it, so she lets them fade away. She stares at her own reflection, unblinking and intense as if caught in a staring contest with herself. She hardly looks away as she applies dark red lipstick, as she pulls pantyhose up her smooth calves. She's thinking of someone else as she pretties herself, not her mother and not the man in the bed.

She finishes getting dressed and continues her observation of her mirror-self. The two stare at each other. Identical and flawless. Not a single hair out of place. She would reach out and touch her fingers to the glass if she wasn't averse to smudging the surface.

The ritual ends; she breaks eye contact with herself in order to grab the bottle of nail polish remover and turn away from the mirror. She idly reads the list of ingredients as if she doesn't know exactly what it says, as if she hasn't read it time after time while thinking of today.

She unscrews the cap and strides back over to the bed. She observes the man sleeping there with something that looks like idle curiosity, a child looking at animals at the zoo. She hesitates with the bottle.

He won't wake if she drugged him correctly. And she surely did. She has led a life of crucifying herself at the altar of perfection, and what would that mean if she could not adequately complete this most important of tasks?

But still, the thought of rousing him is an uncomfortable one, so she pauses for a few seconds before growing disgusted with her own fear. She upends the bottle and spills its contents over him, over the sheets, pouring until nothing remains.

The smell of it is chemical, harsh, sterile. She enjoys it.

She stalls once again. She looks at his face. His lips are parted, his brow creased. His hair is silver at the temples. His beard and goatee will need a trim soon. He looks different like this. There is no visible indication that his sleep is anything other than natural.

Sentiment does not become her. She has had her moments, and she'll be late if she keeps this up. She needs to either do what she intends to do or leave now to keep her appointment. And it occurs to her that the latter is an option. She does not have to see this through. She can walk through the door and leave him like this. He will wake later, befuddled, in sheets that stink of acetone.

Disgust again, aimed inward. She pulls the lighter from her pocket and allows herself no more time to think.

She sets him alight, watches for a few seconds to make sure the flames catch, then turns purposefully for the door. 

* * *

 

The taxi is waiting by the park a few blocks from her house. She opens the door and slides into the backseat. She leans forward to order the driver to an address, then turns her attention to the other person in the back.

It is another young woman, a woman who can't be much older than she is. This girl is overly pale, with a narrow, pointed face framed by dark bangs. The black polish on her nails is chipped and cracking. They do not seem much alike, these two, at least in appearance. Maybe the driver has noticed the same and is wondering what a girl dressed like a woman and one dressed like a deviant, both looking fresh out of school, are doing in his taxi.

"Good morning," the second girl says. Her voice is flat, though she's smiling.

"Yes, it is," the first agrees.

"He didn't give you any trouble, did he?"

"No." She does not mention the acetone and the lighter and the deadly combination of the two. That was her plan alone, not part of theirs. She could tell. Indeed, she thinks the other girl would be glad to hear of it. But she doesn't want to. The fire burns privately in her own mind and history.

The thought of fire has her reaching for her cigarettes again. The driver objects, gesturing to the numerous signs imploring passengers not to smoke, but she simply rolls her eyes, produces several bills from her wallet, and slides them through the window. He shuts up and she smokes in peace. The other girl watches the exchange with her little smile still in place.

"Are we really doing this?" she asks.

"Are you getting cold feet?" the smoker says, mockingly.

"I have bad circulation. My feet are always cold."

"I can't relate." Her tone is still derisive, but she holds out her free hand. Their fingers twine together, one cold, one over-warm. They sit in the back of the taxi and hold hands. One smokes; the other stares out the window.

"Where did you tell your parents you were going?"

"I didn't. I just left." She shrugs. "I wonder how long it'll take for them to notice. How long it'll take for them to care."

The smoker takes a drag from her cigarette. She idly flicks her lighter on and off in one hand, a habit of nervousness or boredom. She looks away to say what she says next.

"You deserve to be cared about."

The other girl barks an incredulous laugh, looks at her, and sees she isn't joking. She shifts in her seat, not knowing how to respond.

"Isn't that my line?"

"You deserved better than them."

She's more prepared with a retort this time. "You deserve better than him."

They stare at one another. Neither gives in first. The cab is thick with the smell of smoke, even with a window opened a crack. Outside, the city is running past them. There are people outside, tourists, locals, walking dogs, shopping, living. Nobody pays attention to the two girls in the taxi. Even the driver pays more attention to the road than to their conversation.

She wonders whether the fire has yet spread past the bed. She wonders if anyone has noticed the smoke and called the fire department. She wonders if he died without waking up, or if the heat and pain was enough to rouse him from his deadly slumber. To wake in sheets set alight, his skin blistering as hers did, only worse, so much worse. If he woke, he would have screamed. She cannot imagine it. Even if he could still move, water wouldn't have helped.

She planned with care.

She runs her perfectly-painted nails down the side of her face, leaving scratches behind.

"No," she says. "I don't."

She knows she belongs in the bed and the fire, but the fingers intertwined with her own tell her that she belongs here too. The steady dark gaze meeting hers second by second tells her that she has this, whether she deserves it or not.

"You should go home," she says. Her voice rasps; she fakes a cough to blame it on the cigarettes.

The other girl's smile disappears and her eyes narrow. She isn't impressed by the suggestion.

"I've made my choices and I'm fine with them."

The smoker shakes her head, even as the words thrill her. She leans in closer, maybe inappropriately close for the back of a taxi, and breathes in her companion's ear.

"Say it for me."

The second girl snorts, rolls her eyes, and complies. "I chose you."

She smiles, radiant, satisfied. She looks out the window. Outside the taxi, it is spring. There are flowers blooming in shop windows. Inside the taxi, time stands still. Maybe spring will never come. Maybe it already has. It doesn't matter. The two of them live in their own world, and they have already gotten where they are going. 

* * *

 

The taxi stops downtown at the address she gave the driver. Both of them remain seated for a long moment, caught between what came before and what happens next. Neither wants to leave the moment and the taxi, but leave it they must.

The driver reads out the cost, and the smoker opens her wallet to portion out the correct bills. After she's handed them over, she pauses. She looks back down at the leather bifold in her hands. She pulls out all the cash she has on her, every last paper bill, and tosses that handful carelessly through the divider two.

They leave the taxi driver caught between bewildered and grateful, trying to count out the amount and watch the girls go all at once. The car smells like smoke.

They have been dropped outside of a glass-and-steel building a few dozen stories tall. The second girl glances up at the facade, her face still except for the rise of her eyebrows. The smoker pays no attention at all to the grandeur. As she strides up the steps, her coat flares around her and her heels make sharp sounds against the pavement. She drops her cigarette and crushes it beneath her foot. When she's done looking at the building, the other girl follows.

Inside, it's cool and dark. The receptionist looks up, recognizes the girl striding toward him, and bows. The girl smiles a cold and impersonal smile as she walks past. She indicates with a gesture of her hand that the other girl is her guest. There are no questions; they know who she is, even if her presence here is unusual.

"We're taking the stairs?" the second girl complains when she identifies the door they're heading toward.

The first smirks. "I'm in heels. What do you have to complain about?"

The last time she was here, there was a picture of him in the elevator. He'd looked at it and chuckled and asked what she thought. She'd shrugged. When they arrived on the floor of his office, her lipstick had been smudged.

"I have a lot to complain about, actually," the other girl mutters, though she follows anyway. The stairs, a fire escape, are less elegant than the rest of the building. There are no windows. The two of them climb alone and uninterrupted in a concrete cell.

Her heels click sharply with each step. She pushes herself up and up, one floor, two, three, two stairs at a time. She climbs like she's running away from something, or toward something. She breathes in and out, refusing to slow even as her legs and lungs begin to complain. She is not built for this, but she won't let that stop her. She will force herself to climb until her heart gives out or until there are no more stairs left.

Whichever comes first.

The second girl is a floor behind now, slower. She's panting and embarrassed for it; it's not like her life has offered a great many opportunities for regular exercise, but still it feels like a personal failing. She can't catch up.

Until she does. The first girl has stopped, clutching the railing, bent double as her lungs protest. She coughs and coughs, a horrible sound even though both have been inured to it. Her companion reaches out to hold her, to help her, but her hands are brushed away.

"I'm fine," she wheezes. "It's just a _cough_."

When she can breathe normally, she straightens. Already scornful of her own pathetic display, she keeps going, faster than before. She has to be strong enough for this.

 _Wait,_ the other girl wants to say. _It's fine. We aren't in a hurry._ There are, in fact, many things she wants to say. She says nothing and follows.

Twenty-five floors is a lot of stairs, but not too many. Eventually there is a door, the last door, bearing a warning that maintenance workers only are permitted beyond. When the second girl reaches the top, the first has already gone through, so that the door is open and there is light coming in.

It's cold and windy on the roof. Spring might be coming, but not quickly enough up here.

The first girl is lying down on the flat space between electrical fixtures and puddles. The other one walks over to her and looks down.

"It was worth it, wasn't it?" she says, still breathless.

"Uh, I still think we should have taken the elevator."

"More likely to be waylaid." She fumbles in her pocket. Another cigarette, even now, as she struggles to catch her breath. "Nobody takes the stairs."

They look at each other, one standing, one lying down. The smoker's hair is a messy halo about her face. Her lips are plump and red. Her coat will get dirty like this, pressed between her and the roof. She is a beautiful mess of a person.

"Lay with me," she purrs, eyes cold. The other girl snorts but obeys. The concrete is cold and uncomfortable, but the company is warm.

Above them, the sky is cloudless. It is weird to look at it from a vantage point like this. There are other, taller buildings marring the view, but fewer than there would be down below. It is easier to see the blue. It is so deep, an ocean above their heads. It is odd to think that without gravity, they could float through the blue and go on and on until it became black. Without gravity, they wouldn't be where they are.

"Remember the first time I fucked you?" the smoker asks conversationally.

"No, I'd forgotten."

"There are better things for your tongue to do than sass me."

"Eh, I disagree."

The first time they had sex was in a hotel room downtown. A show of opulence. The smoker wanted something to destroy. The other girl wanted to rebel. These motives coincided in a way that brought them together then, and brought them together today.

"Do you think my parents will have another kid?" the second girl asks. "If my brother disappoints them. Will they just keep trying until they get it right?"

"They'll be trying forever, in that case," the first snorts. "But your mother doesn't have that many years left to push out the perfect child."

"Do you think they'll ever tell him?"

"Hm. Do you?"

"No. Not if it's easy to lie about. Wouldn't be the first time they've lied about me."

"Maybe we should have told them about us."

"It would have been fun," the second girl concedes. She imagines the scene, her mother forced to face something she could not ignore or rationalize away. Not just a secret rebellion any longer. "We should have told him, too."

The first girl says nothing. She looks upward and watches the smoke from her cigarette rise. She imagines it is the smoke coming from the house she left behind. Is he dead yet? He must be, surely. But he doesn't feel dead. She didn't stay long enough to see him as a corpse, so he still seems alive. She looks for him on the roof and feels for him inside, but he isn't there. Alive, but not here.

She got away.

"I killed him," she says. She lets it out as a laugh, a little hysterical, a little incredulous.

"What?"

"Before I left this morning. I killed him. I actually did it."

"You _killed_ him?" The second girl is slow on the uptake, but now a smile is spreading across her face too. She can't really believe it either. Maybe she doesn't believe it at all, but it doesn't matter. Up here, in their own little kingdom, he might as well be dead, and that's what's important.

"I set him on fire."

"Are people flammable?"

She rolls onto her side to look into her companion's eyes. "You burned for me, didn't you?"

Her breath catches in her throat. The past tense is incorrect. She is burning then, in that moment, as she locks eyes with her lover.

"I love you."

The smoker looks taken aback for a moment. Then she grins, feral, and pushes herself to her feet. The other girl follows. Their hair blows messily about their faces. The sun reflecting off the glass of the surrounding buildings is blinding.

"Yes," the smoker says. Her coat is dirty now, and there's a run in her pantyhose, from the roof or the stairs. Her lipstick is impeccable. " _Yes._ "

She reaches out a hand, which the other accepts. The smoker's fingers are burning hot; her companions' slightly cool. They stride together away from their resting place. Their hearts beat in frenzied unison. Neither of them is looking at the sky any longer, but it still stretches glorious and blue above them, promising spring.

They kiss, and then they go.

.

In a burning house, outside the room that once contained a bed and a man and now contains nothing at all, in an upper hall clogged with smoke, there hangs a series of framed photographs. There is a man, a woman, and a girl. Someone looking at these pictures might notice several things: the woman disappearing by the seventh or eighth; the man's arm around the woman's waist or, later, around the girl's; or the girl in the pictures growing older and older and her smile growing smaller and smaller.


End file.
